¹³ Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? ¹⁴ But even if you do suffer for doing what is right,^[a] you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear,^[b] and do not be intimidated,^{(A) 15} but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you,^{(B) 16} yet do it with gentleness and respect. Maintain a good conscience so that, when you are maligned,^[c] those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.^{(C) 17} For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. ¹⁸ For Christ also suffered^[d] for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you^[e] to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,^{(D) 19} in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, ²⁰ who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight lives, were saved through water.^{(E) 21} And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for^[f] a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,^{(F) 22} who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.^(G)

Good Stewards of God’s Grace

4 Since, therefore, Christ suffered in the flesh,^[g] arm yourselves also with the same intention (for whoever has suffered in the flesh has finished with sin),^{(H) 2} so as to live for the rest of your time in the flesh no longer by human desires but by the will of God.^{(I) 3} You have already spent enough time in doing what the gentiles like to do, living in debauchery, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.^{(J) 4} They are surprised that you no longer join them in the same excesses of dissipation, and so they blaspheme.^{[h](K) 5} But they will have to give an accounting to him who stands ready to judge the living and the dead.^{(L) 6} For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.

A Third Time Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

¹⁷ While Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside by themselves and said to them on the way, ¹⁸ “Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death;^{(A) 19} then they will hand him over to the gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and on the third day he will be raised.”^(B)

The Request of the Mother of James and John

²⁰ Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to him with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him.^{(C) 21} And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”^{(D) 22} But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?”^[a] They said to him, “We are able.”^{(E) 23} He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left, this is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”^(F)

²⁴ When the ten heard it, they were angry with the two brothers.^{(G) 25} But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.^{(H) 26} It will not be so among you, but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,^{(I) 27} and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave, ²⁸ just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.”^(J)